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Well.... I'd not go so far as to call Canada/US the most close-minded in the world (let me direct you to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, some parts of Africa or Asia...).

But the ideals which cement the underpinnings of each country depend on an educated, well-informed populace. We have very mixed results on that. There are factional elements that have emotionally bound, irrational views (irrational meaning their opinion is counterfactual or justified with emotional underpinning... "think of the children").

If we were *really* close-minded, we wouldn't be able to even discuss this, they'd be burning us for witchcraft already But it is (and should be) an ongoing discussion with a lot of light shone on all viewpoints (including my own).

Maybe it was a tad deeper than my normal fair. But I feel that in the free world, things like this should be made avalabul to everyone. And let them make the choice as wot to do with it.

That said, I am a woman who beleaves that dispite arguments that this Manga is "unacseptabul" It should have been published anyway. Mostly because, then the choice is still there for the public at large. By droping the title compleatly, they have taken that choice away from everyone.

If that is his justification that the manga was too offensive for the US market, i have no idea what to say. For crying out loud, Berserk has pages of people getting raped by demons. It even has incest, people being tortured, massive blood and gore, etc, etc.

And yet its popular and over a dozen volumes are already in the market, and more are coming out at an amazing rate.

I can see the manga getting cancelled because vendors were spooked and he didnt have enough orders. But really, i cant see any offensive content in it at all. So a loli has a crush on her teacher and fools around with her....and? Unless it gets directly into underaged sex, its pretty tame compared to the many titles that are on the market already which everyone has pretty much ignored. Really, the only reason vendors were cancelling their orders were because they ordered it in the first place before people started bullshitting that it was a lolicon h-manga online, and they believed them.

I would like to know just how many of the vendors who cancelled their orders did it purely because they read through the japanese volumes and decided that it was too inappropriate, instead of panicking over media reactions if they are found carrying a "lolicon h-manga".

Jason would have been better off sticking to the business reasons: his vendors abandoned him. His justification only works if you ignore everything that leads up to that scene and the aftermath. Once again, its "pick a random page out of context" day. One can demonize almost anything that way.

I don't know that the vendors actually had any clue ... their reaction may simply have been from Jason noting that the series might experience some controversy over a precocious child trying to seduce her teacher. bingo..... easier to run and hide than to ask for more details, especially for something that might only sell a few thousand copies.

I think it's a pity it was dropped, but at the same time, I don't blame them. Neither the vendors nor Seven Seas.

Even if they'd like to spread manga, they're in the industry primarily to earn a living. It's their day job, not their hobby. And there's no point in picking that kind of fight. Not unless it was a promise of a big commercial success to offset the trouble they'd go through, and KnJ isn't that.

I agree it would have been cool if it'd passed under the radar like so many potentially outrageous titles before it, but it didn't. Get over it.

I'm working through my "grief" You'll have to get over it that I'm not quite over it yet.
(sorry, but "get over it" is just funny ... its just as silly as the japanese proverb that translates as "It can't be helped." --- it sustains fatalism)

@Ahn: aye.. I'm more sorry for SevenSeas stumbling so bad. (sorry if that sounded snippy ... it was meant to be a lame play on words)

However, recently I've seen more than a few anime and manga where it was pretty clear the acquisition people and the marketing people HAD NOT viewed or read the material past the first few chapters.
Tsukuyomi Moon Phase -- the anime previews were completely offbase about the series. I keep wondering if Tokyopop will go "o shit" when they get to the more recent volumes of the manga.

Negima (first season) -- it was pretty clear from the previews (again) that they had not viewed the series. In the case of the manga, there was a hubhub, they shrinkwrapped the first few... and now no shrinkwrap though the situations in the manga are often far more explicit.

---
SevenSeas was doomed the instant they queried the vendors --- who go to their lawyers and insurance people .... who respond "lolita again??? you've got to be joking, run away". Given Jason's "moral justification" I'm having trouble believing he actually *read* all 3 volumes but just flipped the pages and read sections that looked scary.

Meh, just means that I'll keep reading KnJ the hard way like I do L*S or Yotsubato .... it's good practice.

@Question: eeeeeyeah. That's pretty much describes the incident. Some of the staff over at ANN are long time anti-moe (and anything related) types. Few or perhaps none of them have ever cracked the books open. Anyone who disputes their tactics they label as pedophiles. The posting trolls and bookburners pretty swirled up into flames ... "think of the children!!!!" after that. Basic Hysteria....

What has been really hilarious is the backpedaling at ANN over them being one of the prime instigators of the wildfire.... an all too familiar tactic :/

((side note: interestingly, B&N just took my order for the first volume without blinking. I'm just curious to see how it all filters...))

I may not like it, but from a risk-analysis standpoint I can understand Seven Seas decision. Where I think they really screwed the pooch (ooops, now I'm going to be labeled as some kind of perverted caniphile) is in the public relations department, and not just from the fandom standpoint - if I was an investor I would be a little leery of them right now.

But having had the chance now to view the portions of the manga that could "not be considered appropriate for the US market by any reasonable standard", I'm not sure whether I should be saddened or amused. Was I subjected to images and vivid descriptions of violence, depravity, and perverse debauchery far too horrible to detail on a public forum? No, I saw a male teacher in his early twenties holding a shivering female third-grader inside his jacket so that he could warm her without becoming chilled himself. I'd be morally outraged if I hadn't seen similar body positioning used in survival manuals that demonstrate ways to keep another person from suffering hypothermia by using your own body heat. Then came what had to be the most unacceptable thing of all. The male teacher experienced a perfectly normal physiological response when the previously mentioned female third-grader started wriggling around on his lap. Correction - it wasn't shown, it was implied by his thoughts and facial expressions. He did not want it to happen, he did not appear to be enjoying himself, and he certainly gave no indication that he was about to lose control and rape her.

Let me clarify something for anyone reading this who hasn't been, never will be, or has forgotten about ever being a male in his early twenties: what happened to that teacher is an absolutely normal physiological response for a healthy male when subjected to that sort of physical stimulus. The fact that the stimulus was provided by an underage girl does not make him a pedophile. I would be willing to wager a large sum that if you were to take a healthy young adult male and apply the same stimulus to their groin with a bag of warm mashed potatoes you would see the same response far more often that not. But that doesn't mean that that man should be banned from entering the state of Idaho, or ordered to stay more that 1000 feet away from any McDonalds so that they won't try to molest the Fry KidsŪ. If he begins experiencing regular erections just by thinking about tater tots, without any physical stimulus, then I will start to be concerned.

Sigh. I hadn't even planned to buy this manga in the first place, so I guess it is just the principle involved. I've got two young girls of my own, so I certainly have no tolerence when it comes to real live pedophiles. I'm well aware that they are out there, but I'm not ready to fall into the trap of seeing them behind every tree and rock.

As much as I am a vehement supporter of free speech and a hater of censorship, I am relieved that the title has been canceled. It really pisses me off when a small loud group of opinionated people, who would be victims, prevent free speech by figuratively cutting off the purse strings allowing for the broadcast/publication of what would be controversial material. I suppose my stance on Kodomo no Jikan is that as long as it is legal under the laws of the United States, there should be no reason for it not to be published. The problems arise when a group of close minded "pundits" start spoon feeding people their uninformed opinions, and in turn the people gobble it up without doing thinking or research for themselves. That intellectual laziness is one of the greatest faults of the modern age of instant communication. So why am I a relieved that it was canceled? Seven Seas totally bungled the publication from the beginning, expecting to sell the title in retail stores was a stupid idea. Although many may dismiss the argument about a American media hysteria over "Obscene Pedophilic Japanese Cartoons/Graphics Novels" I really think it would have been a real possibility had it been published and shipped to retail stores. If Seven Seas had been more subtle in the marketing and sale of the series i'm sure it could have been a success, after all they are targeting a hardcore American otaku market to begin with so how would online only retail sales hurt them with this title? I certainly don't see hardcore yaoi or eromanga when I go to B&N or Borders, but that hasn't prevented yaoi from becoming a popular and successful niche genre in America. It is because they attracted so much attention to themselves with this title, and the ignorant douche bags at ANN and other places (does anybody know a good alternative to their encyclopedia? I really ******* hate them now) that that the title has been doomed. Some of the scanlations I saw of the series posted on blogs really, really creeped me out, HOWEVER unlike many Americans, I feel that just because I did not like DOES NOT MEAN THAT OTHER PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO IT

This is an indie effort between me and maybe 2 other. For now, the plan is to host the files on a private FTP.

As a start, I'm done translating one out of two of the prototype chapters released only in Comic High in 2004 before the series officially start in 2005. Now it's up to the 2 of them to PS my translation in.

I dont blame SSE for the drop of the manga, but I am disapointed in the outcry that was made as a result of the whole materal issue.

You have stated some very powerfull reasions for the Manga to be looked at in the PROPER light, and I admire your input. I beleave that meny others would as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jubei_Asaemon

Some of the scanlations I saw of the series posted on blogs really, really creeped me out, HOWEVER unlike many Americans, I feel that just because I did not like DOES NOT MEAN THAT OTHER PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO IT

Jubei_Asaemon: This is much the same way I feel. also your post was very insightfull, and well thought out. It shows that there are still mature and resonabul people out there.

I tried to cookie you Furu, but I apparently try to cookie almost every post you make (I'll come back and do it later). Nicely summarized. I find it kind of aggravating (as a parent) when bookburning types and their ilk claim to represent or know how I think

@grgspunk: Google is your friend... but it stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is one of the original methods of transferring files from computer to computer on the Internet. Visit tucows.com to look for a freeware FTP client. It isn't very different from other file transfer protocols (http, for example).

Relisting Matthew's blog for Great Truth
(which has pictures and translations of the exact "offending" frames that Jason claims disturbed him. .... remember these two are locked in a locker and are freezing). Sorry, Jason would have been much better off just saying the vendors bailed because he let them know there were bookburners at the door because they erroneously thought he was selling porn.http://matthew.animeblogger.net/mabn...ymphet_ca.html

I keep being told that it's legal, but then I keep running into the United States Code Title 18:

and as for now I'm still puzzled as for if it is or is not legal in the US. And just to make sure I'm completely clear, I'm refering to manga. I do not under and circumstances condone actual children.

I don't condone actual children either. I shall go on the record as being opposed to them.

You say you keep running into Title 18. How do you keep missing the stuff that invalidates it?

As Congress's findings demonstrate, Congress understood the the "appears to be a minor" and "conveys the impression" of a minor to refer to depictions that are virtually indistinguishable from unretouched photographs of real children. 18 U.S.C. 2251 note (Supp. IV 1998) (Finding 5). Drawings, cartoons, sculptures and paintings of youth-looking persons engage in sexual activity do not satisfy that standard. The Act therefore does not cover such artistic works.

I believe this is the governments argument, as it came from a petition from the Solicitor General. The government was never after cartoons or comics or sculptures or paintings. They were interested in the real thing or computer generated images that were "virtually indistinguishable" (whatever that means) from the real thing.

It was all moot. The Supreme Court in John Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition found much of Title 18 unconstitutional:

206The contention that the CPPA is necessary because pedophiles may use virtual child pornography to seduce children runs afoul of the principle that speech within the rights of adults to hear may not be silenced completely in an attempt to shield children from it. See, e. g., Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115, 130-131. That the evil in question depends upon the actor's unlawful conduct, defined as criminal quite apart from any link to the speech in question, establishes that the speech ban is not narrowly drawn. The argument that virtual child pornography whets pedophiles' appetites and encourages them to engage in illegal conduct is unavailing because the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 566, absent some showing of a direct connection between the speech and imminent illegal conduct, see, e. g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (per curiam). The argument that eliminating the market for pornography produced using real children necessitates a prohibition on virtual images as well is somewhat implausible because

207few pornographers would risk prosecution for abusing real children if fictional, computerized images would suffice. Moreover, even if the market deterrence theory were persuasive, the argument cannot justify the CPPA because, here, there is no underlying crime at all.

No victim. No crime. While you kept running into Title 18, you somehow managed to avoid running into the Supreme Court decision invalidating the passage you quoted -- a passage that never intended to cover any drawing, comic, painting, or sculpture in the first place. Frankly, I just don't know why people so adept at finding (and in your case, running into) Title 18, just can't find a key definition from the Government and the Supreme Court's decision that invalidated the language those same people are so fond of quoting (and putting in bold text).